‘Very concerned’: New Parker injury has Popovich on alert

By the fourth quarter of the Spurs’ 100-88 loss at Oklahoma City on Thursday, Gregg Popovich had seen enough of Tony Parker.

It wasn’t exactly the All-Star point guard’s 1-of-6, two-point scoring night that was concerning the Spurs coach. It was the way Parker was hobbling up and down the court at Chesapeake Energy Arena, looking more like 38-year-old Thunder guard Derek Fisher than Fisher himself.

“I saw him come across half court actually limping at one time, so that’s when we pulled him,” Popovich said. “I said ‘Tony, you’ve got to stop, so we can figure out what it is.’ He just couldn’t go.”

Heading into the game, Parker was dealing with a laundry list of bumps, including a bone bruise in his left ankle leftover from a sprain suffered March 1.

Popovich doesn’t believe what plagued Parker in OKC was necessarily that, but a previously unreported injury to his shin.

“My feeling is tendonitis, something in his shins or whatever, from the way it looked on the court, but I don’t know,” said Popovich, who described himself “very concerned” about his star guard’s health.

“We thought he had just kind of recovered from his ankle, so this was something new tonight with his leg,” Popovich said. “I just don’t know what it is right now.”

Parker, who logged two of his nearly 26 minutes in the fourth quarter and had a string of 55-consecutive double-digit games snapped, was in no mood to rehash his medical chart after the game. He certainly should have been fresh after sitting out a victory over Orlando the night before in San Antonio.

“”I just have to get healthy,” Parker said. “I’m not going to give you any other answers than that.”

Asked if he had a feeling whether he would be able to play Saturday at home against Atlanta, Parker said: “We’ll see.”

“I’ll talk with the medical staff, talk with Pop and try to make the best decision to make sure I’m 100 percent and healthy for the playoffs,” Parker said. “That’s the most important thing.”

Parker’s health woes come at a bad time for the Spurs, who are already without sixth man Manu Ginobili for perhaps the remainder of the regular season with a strained right hamstring.

“To have those two guys in that situation now is really disappointing,” Popovich said. “But you move on. Life is tough.”